Miami Breaks Ground For 16,000-seat Arena

August 5, 1986|By Robert A. Liff, Sentinel Miami Bureau

MIAMI — With a brush-clearing backhoe clanking in the background, politicians, sports figures and singer Julio Iglesias joined for a ''symbolic ground breaking'' for a 16,000-seat, $50 million sports arena that Miami's leaders see as the key to the city's hopes for a National Basketball Association franchise.

Former Philadelphia 76ers coach Billy Cunningham, who along with theatrical producer Zev Bufman will be the two principal owners of the prospective team, said he is not thinking about Orlando as competition for the expansion franchise the NBA is considering at a meeting in October.

''I think our main competition at this point would be Minneapolis,'' Cunningham said. ''I would say they organizers in Orlando are about a year behind us in getting a building.''

Though the projected opening date for Miami's arena is November 1987, Orlando Professional Basketball President Pat Williams was skeptical.

''You just cannot get one of these buildings up that quickly,'' Williams said.

''Our discussions with engineers and architects indicates that it takes the better part of two years to get an arena of that magnitude constructed,'' he said. ''My feeling is that they won't be open until the fall of 1988, which is when we'll have our building open.''

Five cities have applied for NBA expansion franchise -- Charlotte, N.C.; Santa Ana, Calif.; Orlando; Miami; and Minneapolis. The NBA may decide the expansion issue at a meeting in October in Phoenix, Ariz.

Iglesias, who lives in South Florida, is one of 12 investors in Miami's effort.

The ground breaking actually came before the final contracts have been signed between the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority and developer Decoma Ventures, a Houston company that plans to build a carbon copy of Houston's Summit arena in the depressed Overtown neighborhood just north of downtown Miami.

''The deal is done,'' Rick Horrow, sports authority executive director, said of negotiations with Decoma. He said he expects contracts to be signed by next week.